Outside the Box

India’s Market Leaders: My 10 Key Observations

This issue of Outside the Box newsletter is authored by Jatin Khemani. Jatin shares his key observations from analyzing market leaders across industries in India.

One common advice I find veteran investors passing on to next-generation investors is to look for companies dominating their industry and enjoying entry barriers ensuring their profit pool share is protected.

Now, ideally, we may think that the top 3-4 players by market share in any category should be qualified as ‘dominant players’ even if their respective market share is in single digit. However, for the purpose of this research, I have restricted my analysis to only those companies that enjoy at least a 35% share in their respective categories.

You must be thinking that it is quite a stringent filter and there would only be a handful of companies that will make it to the list – after all, we are a free economy with enormous capital chasing opportunities on one side and ever-tightening regulations in the form of competition commission etc., on the other.

The Low Stress Way to Research Stocks

This issue of Outside the Box newsletter is authored by Jatin Khemani. Jatin talks about his equity research process and how he tries to balance the stress part of the equation that it involves. Over to him.

The Low Stress Way to Research Stocks
by Jatin Khemani

Six years ago, Prof. Sanjay Bakshi published a blog post where he suggested looking at returns from a very different perspective – Returns Per Unit of Stress.

One of the key points he made in the post was –

For proprietary investors (and maybe for all investors), stress should figure in one’s investment strategy, much more than it does, perhaps, even more than financial risk, because stress is a killer and high-stress situations – whether they carry high or low investment risk – will always carry a high risk to one’s health. In fact, one can now measure how many years of one’s life is cut short by being exposed to a high-stress life.

In this post, I take that idea further with my own experiences of being a full-time value investor over the better part of this decade.

Investing and the Art of Stillness

This is the fourth issue of Outside the Box newsletter, and is authored by my friend Arpit Ranka.

In this post, Arpit talks about how we, as investors, need to embrace the good, bad, and ugly side of every investment thesis/strategy and be willing to live through all the seasons, if we have to stand a chance to succeed in the long run. Over to him.

The Art of Stillness
by Arpit Ranka

The noted English singer and songwriter John Lennon said, “Life is what happens while you are busy making plans.”

As an investor, I can tweak this thought to — “Investing is what happens when you are busy pursuing the next big investment idea.”

No doubt that ideation is a very integral part of any investment process but then equally central is to develop a mindset, which allows us to capitalize on the full potential of that investment strategy.

Of Politics, Biases, and Investing

First, an update. I did my Value Investing Workshop in Bangalore yesterday, and received an overwhelming reponse…

The upcoming sessions are in Chennai (23rd Sept), Mumbai (30th Sept), and Hyderabad (7th Oct). If you wish to register for any of these, please click here.

Coming to this post, this is the third issue of Outside the Box newsletter, and is authored by my friend Ninad Kunder.

The 9 Biases of Value Investors

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.” ~ Richard Feynman

In the 1970s, two psychologists – Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky – proved, once and for all, that humans are not rational creatures. They discovered what we now know as “cognitive biases,” showing that humans systematically make choices that defy clear logic.

Now, having these biases and getting influenced by them is often not a bad thing. These have helped us survive for ages. Also, while we don’t always make decisions by carefully weighing up the facts, we often make better decisions as a result. This is applicable to most of what we do in life.

However, when it comes to investment decision making, our biases may get us into (big) trouble. What is more, the irony about these biases is that the more we read about them, the more we believe that we don’t suffer from them as much as others do.

In this second issue of Outside the Box newsletter, my friend Neeraj Marathe pokes a hole in this kind of thinking.

Being A Father

Welcome to the first edition of Outside the Box, Safal Niveshak’s new, free newsletter.

Now, what’s new here? Well, this newsletter will not be authored by me (you must be thanking goodness!), but a few of my friends in the value investing circle.

I have been connected to these people over the past few years, and highly respect their thoughts and ideas about investing, decision making, learning, and life in general.

Now, who are these people? In an alphabetical order, they are – Arpit Ranka, Gaurav Sud, Jatin Khemani, Neeraj Marathe, Ninad Kunder, Samit Vartak, Shyam Sekhar, and Vitaliy Katsenelson.

While these gentlemen are well-known in the value investing circles, I would introduce them better as we move forward and also have a few others join in.

[Read more…] about Being A Father